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God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion

By Christopher Hitchens

There are several reasons why I don't want to admire Christopher Hitchens's new book: I don't want to be brow-beaten by someone deemed one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Prospect; he once wrote mockingly about my dear uncle Maurice, the former Bishop of Norwich; he once went off with a pretty girl I thought I was talking to; he's cleverer, richer and more famous than I am. None of which, I admit, is a rational reason to dislike his book; but then Hitch isn't very rational either, though he likes to pretend he is. He's a grand rhetorician, and his double-barrelled shotgun of a book is high entertainment.

With his first barrel, he demolishes many of the claims of established religions, and with the (more original) second, he demonstrates the catastrophic effect these bad faiths have on the modern world. Primitive, harsh, desert-nomad conceptions of a vengeful